X, The Gunter
by TheForgottenAdventures
Summary: A Gunter must never defy his King. X tells his life story, of finding the King and watching the happenings of the Ice Kingdom from afar. As he waddles through his story he tells you of true Gunter. *Rated T for strong philosophical tie ins"


The life of a penguin kin is short and merciless. Predators lurk like shadows amongst the lost corners of the world known to us. The things on a penguin's mind are pointless to most other beings but we move on. Waddle waddle like machines in the freezing snow. We push and pull, we strive to be something more but in all honesty, we can't. Life is hopeless as a penguin, or at least it was.

In the dark days of snow waddles and snow eating to get by, we penguins looked above to the great mountains that towered over us for guidance. We prayed and waddled, prayed and waddled, we worked endlessly to provide offerings in penguin blood and virgins. We thought these prayers would never be answered and we lost more and more virgin penguins and supplies of fresh food to what seemed like a lost cause. But one day, a man came to us. This man had been talked about for decades by penguin folk of young and old. Skin cold and blue, elastic like rubber. Hair that was as white as the snow we ate. He had heard the curdling cries of a young penguin virgin from below his cave in the great mountains.

He was a god of old tales, a king amongst us, an Ice King. He looked over the bloody virgin penguin and mumbled to himself endlessly, he looked over all of us, beaks open and stupid looks painted across our penguin faces. I remember the day, looking out from the crowd and seeing him look us over. The elders approached him and for a moment he seemed like he would attack, but then he lowered himself. He was a kind king at the time and gave us a chilling but… seemingly warm smile. He lead us up the long path to his cave, the journey took a toll on our numbers as the path was frozen with ice. I remember losing many pupils to the slippery path and the icy depths below. Truly this was a test for all us penguin folk, to see if we were truly worthy of being in the presence of a King. When finally we reached his cave he led us in and left us once more. Taking a few virgins for himself of course, even a kind king must partake in mortal penguin ways, and it was the best we could do to thank him. That whole night I feasted upon bread crumbs, such a glorious taste that I now take for granted.

My name is Xenophon, and I am a watcher, a studier and a thinker. I see the penguins around me today, Gunters in a time of namelessness and I ask where things went wrong. I look back on times of revolution. Young Lenin's and Marxists, following blindly through thoughtless times only to be placed upon the feeding table like stuffed pigs by our one and only king. A young penguin who we like to call Hippocrates now, once stood on the slippery slopes of the path, chanting ways of healing without ice and the King. His talk was blasphemy against our great King, and one day he was pushed from the path and then brought back for eating. We are not cannibals as these are not true penguins, the King tells us. Gunter tells me he is right but even I sometimes found myself questioning.

Galilei, a friend of mine once taught with me and would sometimes stop his classes to call on me as I watched.

"You, X, what do you say of the King? Of the great treehouse of afar that he hides from us? Of the pink kingdom over the roaming hills that mocks us as the King comes home defeated to plunder our virgins? What do you say of the king?" His class would look to me, hanging on my every word as if it were the King's word.

"It is not my place to question the needs and teachings of the King." I would say as I looked out over the harsh tundra below me. The words I spoke were reinforced by the red spots that reminded me of past attempts at questioning the King. Galilei was persistent though. Gunter would look at me, all the Gunters would.

"How can you say that? The world is too expansive to allow ourselves to be kept in a place like this cave. Our great King may bless us with eatings and feastings but he shields the world from us. The lands around us glow with anticipation of our arrival to them. We could expand to be much more than we are, could we not?" Again, Gunters would look to me.

I sighed. "Why do you do this G? You question the King, the King that places the ice below our feet and heals our wounds and wounded. Fights our battles and protects Gunter. Why do you question his demands and his reproach from showing us the colorful world around us? He is our King, he is immortal and yet you question him. I've seen too many young Gunters fall to these thoughts, I wish not to lose you too."

Galilei would scoff and go on though, bashing my thoughts and my teachings and even the teachings of my teacher. For this, I killed Galilei. I burned his feathers with the flames of the King's candle when he was asleep. I pained me to do it, but a teacher like Galilei was bad for Gunter.

Even after so many deaths though I watched the rise of so many others. Rise and fall they did and I watched from afar, waddle waddle as I may like any other Gunter. I watched the rise of a leader known as Julius or JC. He once watched the King's door at night during the time of Hannibal the distasteful penguin kin who looked to kill the King in his sleep. Julius watched as the King squashed Hannibal and all of his children then ate beside the King at the feasting hall as we ate Hannibal.

Julius would sit with the Gunters as I taught, listening and nodding as I spoke highly of the King. One day though, he watched as his good friend P turned on him and took true blood for the first time. After this point he no longer listened to me. He would watch the King's door but sometimes I'd catch him looking out at the pink kingdoms during his shift.

"Julius, what are you doing?" I asked. "Shouldn't you be watching the king?"

Julius didn't turn. "Gunter won't attack the King, there is no need. I've watched his door for many nights, tonight is mine to dream." And with that I left him.

One night I found myself feasting on Julius. I found it hard to put down but I did it anyway, for the King.

A young student used to ask me "What is a Gunter, X?"

"Young Confucius, you know so much for your young penguin age, yet you do not understand what a Gunter is yet?"

Waddle waddle as I may I spoke to young C. "You and I are Gunter, all penguins are Gunter and Gunters. We are the ideal children of the King, he calls us Gunter. Those who are not penguin, like Hannibal and the revolutionaries, are not Gunter. Do you understand?"

He would stare at me with a confused look but comply. "I think so."

One day I found myself watching a young boy play in the snow. He slurped at the spaghetti below the snow and growled at the bears that sniffed him. His hat was white like the snow and his companion had God like powers. I learned that day that our King was not the only King in our land, but truly the greatest. As he flew down to them I watched as the King defeated the other Gods, froze them and left them for dead. Upon arrival the King looked to me. "Gunter, you will come with me now." I followed.

Into his bedroom I went, the corpses of half eaten Gunter virgins and their organs were spewed about. I walked on though, unfazed as I knew the King performed these rituals. As the King laid his icy hand on my penguin shoulder I found myself stop waddling as he showed me the view from his room.

"That is the treehouse Gunter. Where the wretched ones preside, we hate them so, don't we?" I squawked.

"I kill them day in day out but they return to feast upon the spaghetti of my land. I hunger for their organs yet I cannot feast upon them as they are too strong. Reality has no effect on them, they are above the laws of time and space and defy me endlessly."

I squawked.

"You don't though, you never will Gunter, and that is why I love you my boy."

I find myself not squawking this time, but crying. The King truly loved me as his Gunter, and that night I felt his personal Icicle entrance my inner being and realism washed over me. His icy fluids cleansed me like no other.

From then on I never left his icy room. I'd watch him devour virgin Gunters and have his way with them, as I was one with him now.

I was his child and I was part of him.

Or so he thought… waddle waddle as I may for now, hopes for the true Kings' grace to wash me still waits within me. I will never stop waddling. Waddle Waddle.


End file.
